Paul's birthday Cruise Day 2 - 30 September 2015 - at sea.

Morning

I currently have no idea what the time is.  We woke up when our watches still said around 6am, but according to the ship newsletter the clocks were supposed to go one hour ahead last night.  There aren't many clocks visible around the ship, but the ones I can see aren't helping me - about half of them have been set ahead and the rest haven't.

The time wouldn't normally worry me except for dinner - we have opted for Traditional dining, which means getting there at the right time.  As it happens, we have a meal booked in a specialty restaurant tonight, but we still need to be there on time.  Hopefully by then I'll know what time they really think it is!

We had breakfast at the buffet this morning, as usual when we're on a cruise.  Then, also as usual, downstairs to one of the only three places on the ship where they make actual coffee.  There's always coffee on offer in the dining rooms but it's that horrible American brewed concoction - Nestles instant would be better!!  Then, we went for a walk around the Panorama deck - 2.5 times around the deck is a mile, so we did just over a mile this morning.  Then, off to the Casino to ensure that the poker machines are working.  They are; but very much in favour of Princess :-)

Currently mid-morning and I'm sitting on the balcony, typing up my ramblings and looking back over where we've been.  Australia is way back that-a-way!!

The Diamond Princess has been coming to Australia for our summers for a long time now - the second cruise we ever took was back in 2008 for my 50th birthday (seems we've always got an excuse for a cruise!!) and it was Sydney to Auckland on this very ship.  It used to spend the northern summers doing Alaska cruises but it spent the most recent one in Japan.  They plan to continue doing this, so there have been a few alterations to the ship - for example a lot of the signs are in both English and Japanese, and I gather that some of the public toilets are of the really complex Japanese variety with multi functions and lots of electronic instructions - I'll have to see if I can track one down.  And of course, since this is the first cruise of the Australian season, there are still some Japanese stores on board - this is currently what you get if you ask for Diet Coke:

Afternoon

Yesterday I talked about the forecast high seas and said that I thought we might miss Fiordland.  Today the captain confirmed this, and it's a bit more dramatic than I thought.  We will be missing Fiordland and also Dunedin; instead we will be going to Wellington as our first stop.  They have since confirmed that the rest of the cruise is unchanged, so after Wellington we will then go south to Akaroa then turn around and come north to Picton then Tauranga, Auckland and Bay of Islands all as per the original itinerary.

The captain also said that we will still get some "strong winds and moderate seas" and this all started this afternoon with a storm sneaking up on us - full scale thunder, lightning and driving rain.

This was the view from our balcony this morning:

And here it is this afternoon (the shot of the lightning is Paul's work)

From a purely selfish perspective, this did show what I had suspected and hoped  - teeming down rain but our balcony was still dry and not too cold.  Nice!!

Evening

Tonight we had the 'complimentary dinner for two in a specialty restaurant' that was part of the special deal Princess was running when we booked.  There are three specialty restaurants on board, but you don't get to pick when or where the complimentary one happens.  Ours was in the sushi restaurant (Kai Sushi), which we would never have picked (nor would most of the Aussies on board it appears, it never has many customers).  However, apart from some communication issues - the waitress's command of English really isn't up to customer service levels, and we don't speak Japanese - we ended up with a surprisingly enjoyable meal.  I think the words Nigiri and Sashimi came into play; lots of different fish, some octopus and other bits and pieces; all really tasty and quite filling.  And, finished off with a desert of green tea icecream and red bean paste which sounds strange but was an excellent way to finish the meal.

I have to apologise to my son too.  Adam is an avid fan of sushi and as part of this has picked up a real liking for eel.  He has tried to persuade me to eat it a couple of times, but I couldn't bring myself to do so.   Turns out to be a big mistake on my part - one of the many things we had on our plate last night was eel and I ate both mine and Paul's.

In a social sense though, the meal was somewhat uncomfortable.  Like in so many restaurant locations on board cruise ships, tables for two tend to be far too close together for a really private dinner.  Last night they sat another couple at the next table almost immediately and we got a first-hand demonstration of the "well-cruised complainer".  They wanted some wine, and there wasn't any of that type available even though there had been some in the dining room the previous night.  They wanted the wine before the food, and snapped at the waitress when she tried to deliver some bean-type snacks to the table.  After a while they gave up on the wine and asked for a gin and tonic, and then spent a few minutes discussing which sort of gin it would be and whether it would be any good.  Then they complained to the restaurant manager about the wine again and made it clear that they had been on many cruises and that they often come across this issue and how unacceptable it is (as though this would somehow make the wine appear).  I was very uncomfortable with the whole performance, and the tables are simply too close together to avoid hearing the whole thing.  Fortunately you don't come across this sort of "we've cruised a lot so we're more important than everyone else" attitude, and usually you can escape by just walking away; not so here unfortunately.

Anyway, we finished off the night with some coffee downstairs - amazingly it wasn't too busy so we sat and drank it there and watched the world (and another storm) go by.

Before we went back to the cabin, I decided to check out the buffet upstairs to see if they had any cookies.  I managed to bring four cookies back to the cabin but only after getting myself completely turned around again and walking the length of the ship twice. Good exercise anyway!!